New Trivium!

Today, Trivium released a song titled In Waves from their upcoming album, which is as of yet untitled. Here it is, in all its glory.

It definitely goes back to their roots and sounds much more like the album that put them on the map, Ascendancy. It is certainly one of the catchiest songs they have written. The heavy segments are definitely inspired by Soulfly; in fact, the heavy parts where Matt is screaming "In Waves" sounds like it comes directly from a Soulfly song. 

There are more breakdowns in this song than in albums past, which is surely due to their new drummer, Nick Augusto. This is the second song by Trivium I have heard (the other being Shattering the Skies Above) since their original drummer, Travis Smith, left the band in February 2010. I think that Nick is a much better drummer than Travis and is moving Trivium forward. That's not to say that Travis is a bad drummer, I just think his only forte was with metalcore music, and wasn't a very well-rounded drummer. 

Typically, I am against the genre-fication of metal, but unfortunately, it is the only way to describe a band's sound. This song is far more metalcore than the previous two records. Basically, this means that there is more of a shift in the song between heavy parts and cleaner parts. There are distinct rifts between extremely heavy parts and more traditional rock parts. The tempo slows, the riff isn't as crunchy, and the vocals go from screaming to clean singing.

I don't want to infer that this is what the album will sound like, however. Too many people hear one song an assume that is how the entire album will sound. For instance, Shattering the Skies Above is a song that was written with the new lineup, and sounds entirely different from this song.

All in all, I think it is an awesome song. It certainly sounds like a Trivium song. It is both a step forward and backward for them, as I feel that Trivium has been a band that has struggled to find a sound that is uniquely theirs. They took a step forward toward creating their sound by taking a step back toward their roots. It remains to be seen (er, heard) what the rest of the album will sound like, but I am very excited for its August release!

A Brief History of Metal

(This was originally posted on boilercamp.us on 6/8/10. There's a month gap here, most of my posts in May were about auto racing news past.)

The other day, I was driving around with my good friend and former staff resident Matt Jackson (his blog can be found here), and we were having a discussion about metal as he went through the mix CD I have in my car. He is borrowing my guitar for the summer and making a valiant effort to learn how to play, and is seeing what I see in metal - the musicianship. Eventually the conversation shifted to the history of metal, of which I actually made a Word document and emailed it to him. The following is that same document. Bear with it, it is somewhat long (I struggled keeping it to two pages!), but very informative if you have a genuine interest on the subject.

Many metal fans have the debate as to who was the original metal band: Led Zeppelin or Black Sabbath. For me, there is no debate, as they both put the first pieces in place to create metal as we know it today (see my blog for my rule of thumb definition of metal)

I start with Black Sabbath. Black Sabbath was responsible for the sound of metal, that gloomy, dark, heavy sound we know. Tony Iommi, guitarist of the band, was once a metal worker. An accident caused him to lose the fingertips of his fret hand, and wore rubber caps on them when he played, which added to the dark sound. In a review for one of their first shows, their sound was described as being "heavy metal-laden." The moniker of heavy metal stuck.

Here is their song Paranoid - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZyVZFJGX5g

Led Zeppelin was responsible for bringing the musicianship, flair, and poetic lyrics to metal. Most bands today have a very good mix of the musicianship and poetry Led Zeppelin was famous for, along with the dark, heavy sound Black Sabbath pioneered.

Kashmir - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfR_HWMzgyc

AC/DC kept metal alive and popularized during the late 70s and early 80s

Highway to Hell - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQIxn7s3ym8

Two more classic bands from the 70s and 80s metalheads have great dispute over as to who was better are Judas Priest and Iron Maiden. To me, there is no dispute, as the bands are two completely different bands and are impossible to compare.

Judas Priest: Breaking the Law - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L397TWLwrUU

Iron Maiden: Run to the Hills - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xR4TZsZOPU

Judas Priest were, eccentric, to say the least, and it opened the floodgates to hair metal in the early 80s. I will skip over the hair metal craze, I like to pretend it never happened. A band came around in the early to mid 80s by the name of Metallica to break the hair metal craze, and are the most influential metal band of all time.

One - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzgGTTtR0kc

After the release of their demo No Life 'Til Leather, guitarist Dave Mustaine was kicked out of the band after a fight with frontman James Hetfield. Mustaine went on to form Megadeth, another one of the most influential metal bands of all time. In my opinion, Megadeth is a better band than Metallica is, but they never met the fame Metallica gained.

Hangar 18 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tzWc3Xl4B0

Pantera, Anthrax, and Slayer round out the Big Five of 80s thrash metal. Unfortunately, Pantera is not around anymore. Their guitarist Dimebag Darrel was killed onstage in 2004 while playing for Damageplan, a band he started with his brother and former drummer of Pantera Vinnie Paul. Members of Pantera had serious issues with each other, and were never likely to come together again, anyway. The Big Five is now reduced to the Big Four. While Metallica and Megadeth inspired musicianship, Pantera created the "chainsaw" kind of sound most bands have today (mids scooped out), Anthrax brought a punk attitude to metal, and Slayer brought the brutality and disturbing images, all of which still run rampant in metal today.

Pantera: Cowboys from Hell - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_WZkCgeXWk

Anthrax: Madhouse - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGHsxMqpL0c

Slayer: Raining Blood - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgpzLUCY0rU

This rounds out the history of metal and brings us to current bands, of which I will mention some of my favorites (in no particular order):

Trivium is a group from Orlando, a four-piece with members who aren't much older than us. Their front man, Matthew Kiichi Heafy, is half Japanese, and a lot of their newer material is based in Japanese culture and mythology. They also have a lot of material based on Greek mythology.

Pull Harder on the Strings of your Martyr - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0dD59FYxJ4

Kirisute Gomen - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgnJSZQNKJM

Becoming the Dragon - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rSfGtLzshc

Shattering the Skies Above - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoUf1bbMTa8 (Newest single!)

Protest the Hero is a group from Canada. Words cannot describe them. I just love them to death. Haha

Blindfolds Aside - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgB1HFZIh3c

Bloodmeat - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhMfz4HrcEA

Sequoia Throne - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWig9FwqWpk&feature=channel

The Black Dahlia Murder are a bunch or nerdy dudes from Michigan. Songs ranging from Castlevania themed to necrophilia. Very poetic though.

What a Horrible Night to Have a Curse - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0d2LAgN-Q4

Deathmask Divine - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8sVXo82V3I

This is me keeping it really short, but certainly the highlights!